Just the Facts
by JackieStarSister
Summary: A list of things you probably didn't know about Toph Bei Fong - her life, her thoughts, and her friendships. Oneshot, rated a weak T. *Cover art courtesy of AvatarSpirit website.*


**Author's Note:** I like those fan fiction stories that are written in the form of a list. My favorites are "Different type of Relationship" by XxLIlyNGxX and "It's A Long, Long Way" by Peripety. I like them because they can tell a story, or they can just tell you more about characters.

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Facts

1. Lao and Poppy Bei Fong wanted to have at least one more child, so that when they died there would still be relatives who could take care of Toph. But they found that they were unable to have more children, which seemed to make them even more afraid of losing the one they did have.

2. Toph can remember a time when her parents let her play in a box full of sand, dirt, and rocks. Mostly she remembers when they told her she couldn't use it anymore, that they had allowed it so she could explore her element but from now on they didn't want her to play in the dirt.

3. Ironically, Toph first heard of Earth Rumble from Master Yu, when he despaired that some of his students were attending them, "supporting that mockery of earthbending."

4. Toph discovered the Earth Rumble competitions when the janitor took one of her badgermole mentors to clean up the arena. At first she was afraid; she had never been among so many people before, and the vibrations were almost overwhelming. But then she realized that no one had noticed her come in. It was a new experience, not being the center of anyone's attention - though this changed when she struck up the courage to enter the competition.

5. Aang was not the only competitor whom Toph befriended, nor was he the first. Six months before Aang arrived, Jojo "The Kissing Bandit" entered the Earth Rumble. She was only a few years older than Toph. Jojo won Toph's respect when she used a Seismic Spring, the closest thing to Toph's sixth sense that any other earthbender had used. Toph never got to say good-bye to her, as Jojo had to flee to avoid being captured and turned in for a reward (Toph later suspected Xin Fu himself).

6. Toph once heard of an earthbender who, when he had to leave his homeland, took with him a small container holding a bit of soil from his home in the Earth Kingdom. Toph considered doing something like this when she ran away, but reasoned that earth was earth, all on the same planet, so it didn't really make a difference.

7. She was only partly proven wrong, as she found on her travels that there are just as many forms of earth as there are of water. They had different smells, textures, and consistencies. She came to like that; it kept her element interesting, always leaving new things to learn.

8. Toph soon found how each person in the trio connected. Sokka and Katara were siblings, who shared a home, a family, and a past. Aang and Sokka were both boys. Katara and Aang were best friends, and they had a student-teacher relationship as well.

9. Toph developed her own niche in the group. She connected with Aang because they were both twelve-year-olds and earthbenders, and with Katara because she was a girl. Toph had a small crush on Sokka, until she found out that not only was he getting over the death of his girlfriend, but he also had a prospective girlfriend in the Earth Kingdom.

10. One day, Katara noticed that Toph was crankier than usual, so she pulled her aside and had a first round of what Toph later dubbed "girl talk." For the rest of the day, Toph was silent, and had a look of vague disgust hidden behind her bangs. But later, Toph was grateful to have someone to explain things and help her, while Katara was glad that she wasn't the only girl in the group who had to hide "girl things" from the boys.

11. There were only two pieces of earth that Toph held on to for any length of time. The first was a worry stone, which she usually kept smooth, but could bend into shapes or dissolve into sand, just to do something with her hands. The second was Sokka's meteorite bracelet, which essentially replaced the worry stone to satisfy whatever need the old one had fulfilled.

12. Toph found that Suki was tactful enough not to tell anyone about what Toph had said when she rescued her from drowning. In fact neither of them ever mentioned it, not even between the two of them.

13. Toph's least favorite time traveling with Team Avatar was when they stayed aboard a hijacked Fire Navy ship. She had never been away from earth for such long periods of time; sometimes two weeks passed between stops at ports for supplies. On the other hand, Toph enjoyed showing off her new metalbending skills to Katara and Sokka. She spent a lot of time improving the technique with the ship's metal exterior, which Hakoda allowed so long as she didn't permanently damage the ship or cause any technical problems.

14. She liked having The Duke around, because it meant that she was no longer the youngest or smallest in the group. She meant to apologize and thank him for letting her use his helmet as an emesis basin, but it was forgotten in the chaos and aftermath of the invasion.

15. When she became annoyed with his questions, Teo explained that he had never met another person who was (for lack of a better word) handicapped. Toph was sullen when he said this, but she listened anyway. Teo said he no longer remembered being able to walk, much less how to walk. He said flying seemed to make up for it; then Toph spoke and said that she felt the same way about being able to feel vibrations, an ability she would not have learned if she had not been born blind.

16. Toph was glad to have Haru with them when Zuko joined and took over most of Aang's training time. This way she still had someone to practice earthbending with.

17. Toph did not, at any time, have a crush on Zuko. She did, however, wish that they could be closer, especially since she could list many things they had in common. They both left behind their powerful families to teach the Avatar. They both came to the group as newcomers and had to learn their place. They were both kind of aloof at times. They both felt a twinge of jealousy when they saw Katara and Sokka reunited with their father.

18. Toph came to regard Iroh as her surrogate grandfather, and irked Zuko by casually addressing him as "Uncle Iroh."

19. Toph liked Mai, once she got to know her. They both knew what it was like to put up with the decorum of high society, and struggle to live up to parents' expectations.

20. Ty Lee had a hard time defining Toph's aura, and found it even more difficult to explain to the blind girl what an aura was. Ty Lee suspected that Toph was convinced she was crazy. But they did come up with one thing they had in common: they both had left behind their families in order to be different and follow their own paths. Toph had to admit that the girl had spunk.

21. Katara and Toph could both bend mud and quicksand, mixtures of water and earth. This gave Toph an idea for what to do when she finally got her field trip with Zuko: she visited him in the capital city, where they explored the volcanoes and bended the magma, a mixture of earth and fire.

22. Toph wasn't sure which would be harder: a mother with sight raising a blind daughter, or a blind mother raising a daughter with sight.

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**Disclaimer:** Jojo is not my creation. Like Malu the reclusive airbender, she is a character in the ATLA trading card game. Both have been mentioned in some other fan fiction stories. (I plan to write a story about Jojo based on Disney's _Robin Hood_.)


End file.
